You would think the sidewalks were made from gold
From all the rumors regarding this place
A fabrication that is bought and sold
Tradition is lies into lemonade

The fragility of life will always terrify me.
Sometimes I feel so vulnerable, 
thinking of all the ways my life could spontaneously end –
the accidents
the inflictions
what I inflict.
The fragility of life will always astonish me.

Vanessa and I talk.
We like talking.
The smell of acetone and wine
fight in the warm air.
A lull of
Avett Brothers music fills the
silence.
Our nail beds
burn,
from too many attempts at
“Nail Art”.
The clock reads

and when you talk in your sleep the voice is never your own

and when the world ends and the next begins our radio stations

will still patiently recite their numbers. (dear mx. god,
is this how it feels to be replaced?) In the wilderness,

I remember Pauline Miller. Before she moved,
She lived in an understated, light green, box of house
on Raldoph Avenue.
She lived there for a long time.

Hair up
Tarp down
Pop
My mother uses her strength to cradle
Our liquid gold
Douses the pan with potential energy
And snaps the blade to its wand
The brush crackles and crinkles
Screams
She slaps more gold on the canvas

My blood is not pure.
Siphoned through custom it puddles as an unholy poison. 
A mixture between castes that courses sin through my veins
Broken tradition seeps through my marrow
and pools black in the hardened pupils of my grandmother

As the years go by and we outgrow our old faces and our old skin and our old identities, 
I wonder to myself if we are really becoming new people at all, 
or if we are simply just accumulating more years and more selves 

It’s not January. It just isn’t. The leaves are green and dance together in hoards above my head, almost mocking me in their togetherness as I shrink into my loneliness.

Please leave a message after the tone.
I love you. I really do.
I had so much fun today.
I’m so lucky to have you in my life.
We’re just an amazing, perfect match.
Text me to plan a date for next week.

Dimensions, our world
Minds comprehend first through third
Fail at the fourth, time

Time flies.
I was in love with you.
You said “ily2”.
I treated you with respect and love.
You said you appreciated it.
That was 1 year ago, oh how time flies.
I continued to love you unconditionally.
You said “ily2 bb”.

7 am

The tabletop
Dirty
With years of paint.
A paint knife
A sponge
A cup of water
The only things that remove years of memories
A fresh palate
Orange watercolor
Pink tempura
Black acrylic
White wall paint
And hot glue

white road lines merging under
our worn out tires,
taking us away
the radio vibrates with
noise over the homeless 
man on the curb,
boombox over stereo
used to be versions of me
over what we’re left with
maybe he wants to get hit

I love the smell of cigarette smoke 
Not because I’m a smoker, I love the smell because 
It takes me back, back to the piss stained streets 
That raised me, where the overwhelming aroma
Of freshly lit cigarettes plagued the air 

she is four years old
toddling around
on wooden floors
like a spinning top,
too short to reach the cabinets or
see above the sink,
clambering atop
countertops
to reach her
pink plastic glasses

Age is just a number
We all start out at one
But someone’s first year
Is another’s seventh
Their neighbor’s eleventh
My fifteenth

The clock glares at me,
with the steady
accusations
of her hands –
Where will you be
In an hour,
 In a day,
 In a year?

You ruffled dress.
You lip glossed, 
clean tongued, classy individual.

Jim didn’t plan on leaving his birthday party. He didn’t even plan on leaving the building, going outside – he saw Barry the Polka Bull walk out the door, and it stayed hanging just open, calling to him.

I am from the nail polish in my room,
From holographic glitter and high heels.
I am from the toys on the ground
(rainbow, soft, Sasha never picks them up.)
I am from cacti pricking my fingers,
From shopping and thanksgiving,
From Sasha to Caleb.

Alone to my thoughts, to my terrors,
Wishing upon days we were careless,
Remembering a time, 
Like a nursery rhyme,
Where our greatest fears were that of the fearless.

If time could be measured in words
I would handwrite novels until my knuckles bled
Analyze every single piece written by Steven King twice
Type poems so complex so that the meaning gets lost
Construct every screenplay to give you the ending you deserve

When I was a little girl,
I wanted to be a princess,
then a vet,
then a president.
I know many girls who at my age
shared those dreams.
The ones I look at now and think
What was I thinking?
Those aren’t possible!
But for a little girl,

it’s been a while
        since I found encouragement
        to rid myself of this
        writer malnourishment
        I guess I lost myself
        trying to explore the world
        yet I still found my mind in the gutters

Hours are not spent well in lethargy
nor in deep-seated exhaustion
Hours are rarely spent
more – lost

The boy from the apartment below yours writes you letters about the birds and calls you a sunset.

“Tu sei il sole del mio giorno.” You are the sunshine of my day.

a house can feel like a whole world
when you’re lying in your bed at 4 a.m.,
too early to rise in a coup against the lingering stars,
too late for the soft black of the backs of eyelids to last long enough,

Your polaroids next to my polaroids
Yours taken with your ‘new’ polaroid camera (1960)
Mine taken with my friend’s ‘new’ polaroid camera (2017)
Yours, yellowed, colors fading,
Mine, stark white with bold colors.